A Look Inside Our Brand New Airbus A330

After an incredible amount of preparation, testing and hard work behind the scenes, our brand new A330 Beauty Queen made her inaugural flight from Manchester to Orlando on Saturday 2nd April.

Our Competition Winner

You may remember that we recently ran a competition for a lucky planespotter to win an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the new A330 as she underwent her final tests and checks in the hangar at London's Gatwick Airport.

Competition Winner Robert Thomson and the new Virgin Atlantic A330

Last week, we were delighted to welcome our winner Robert Thomson down from Northampton for his VIP access-all-areas onboard tour. Robert and his family are frequent flyers who've travelled to Orlando with us on a number of occasions, so he was very keen to experience how his next flight might be.

After the tour, Robert had this to say about Beauty Queen: "What a plane! The level of comfort and spec are fantastic and as for the inflight entertainment, who needs an iPad...".

Today we're we're thrilled to share some photos of the day, inside and out...

Beauty Queen

Our maiden aircraft Beauty Queenis our first long range twin engined aircraft and signals the arrival of our new $2.2 bn fleet of 10 planes, which will be delivered over the next two years.

Virgin Atlantic's A330 'Beauty Queen'

Virgin Atlantic's A330 'Beauty Queen'

Virgin Atlantic A330 Beauty Queen wing

Premium Economy cabin

There are 59 Premium Economy seats onboard, all featuring our brand new and revolutionary touch screen inflight entertainment system. Premium Economy customers also benefit from a unique touch screen remote control handset, and the ability to plug in a variety of their own mobile devices.

Virgin Atlantic A330 Premium Economy cabin

Virgin Atlantic A330 Premium Economy Inflight Entertainment

Economy cabin

In both Premium Economy and in our 255-seat Economy cabin, passengers are able to plug in a USB to view their own content on screen.

Virgin Atlantic A330 Economy cabin

Virgin Atlantic A330 Economy cabin Inflight Entertainment

Flightdeck

The Airbus A330 is the most fuel efficient aircraft in its class today and this investment underlines our commitment to flying a lower carbon fleet. Our inaugural flight was piloted by Captain Chris Hall who said "This is an exciting day for me personally and for all our pilots. Our first twin engined aircraft is a delight to fly."

Virgin Atlantic A330 flightdeck

Virgin Atlantic A330 flightdeck

Virgin Atlantic A330 flightdeck: G-VSXY

Virgin Atlantic's A330 'Beauty Queen' flightdeck

For more information on our A330, lookout for our 'Countdown to Takeoff' post, coming later this week.

Hi there, we have 10 new planes arriving over the next two years; the first 2 will operate on leisure routes and have a Premium Economy and Economy cabin, and the remaining aircraft will be configured with Upper, Premium and Economy.

I'm surprised you do not include UC on the MAN - MCO route. It's often fully booked! I may be a leisure route, but we still appreciate our comfort. Will the UC equipped planes be scheduled for tha MAN - MCO ever?

Maxine, enjoyed your story on the new A330. As a flying buff of many years, I always enjoy info on new aircraft and new aircraft technologies. Economics, unfortunately, along with work schedules prevent indulging in flying as much as we'd like. Hey, noticed the "mini-bio" someone posted at the end of your A330 story. You can "be found...bashing away at her piano"...who wrote that?! LOL! My wife is a pianist and pianists don't "bash" their pianos! They create beautiful music, lol! You need to "bash" whoever wrote that, who is obviously not a musician!

"Hi there, we have 10 new planes arriving over the next two years; the first 2 will operate on leisure routes and have a Premium Economy and Economy cabin, and the remaining aircraft will be configured with Upper, Premium and Economy."

We are booked to travel Lon - Mco for Christmas/New Year 2010/11 and will be in Premium on one of these brand new aircraft! :0) Always fly PE or UC with VA at least twice a year and am looking forward to this year's journeys as always :0)

Just a thought - but on the "leisure" routes is the seat pitch the same in both economy and PE as it would be on the LHR-??? routes.

I believe economy is 31/32inches(747/A340) whereas PE is 38inches.

**www.seatguru.com**

Having flown VS both leisure and business (in PE & UC) the fares from MAN-MCO are certainly in the premium end of the market and looking at the photos - it appears though the rows are closer together...

I echo Jackie's comments - UC has always been full both ways when I've travelled MAN-MCO.

Maxine is the editor of the Virgin Atlantic blog. Travel and music are her joint first loves, and despite having written for Virgin for more years than she cares to remember she still loves nothing more than jumping on a plane in search of new sights and new sounds.